


Ubara

by Twyd



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Ambiguous Slash, Angst, Assault, Death, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Kissing, Kissing in the Rain, M/M, Minor Character Death, Murder, One-Sided Attraction, Pre-Slash, Rain, References to Depression, Slash, Sleepovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-12 21:41:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11170647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twyd/pseuds/Twyd
Summary: Izaya's found by his enemy not in the best of states. But then, Shizuo has always had a very strange moral code.





	1. Chapter 1

Shizuo. Of course it would be Shizuo. Shizuo leaning back smoking against one of the buildings, out of the rain, with his cigarette smouldering in the dark and the streetlights reflecting in his glasses. Izaya on the other hand is very much in the rain, on the ground, caked in mud and his own blood. He tries, once again, to get up.

Failing that, he watches the glow of the cigarette fall, to be extinguished under Shizuo’s shoe. He closes his eyes as those shoes make their way towards him, thinking, _this is it_. At least Shizuo will make a proper job of it, unlike those fucking monkeys who left him half out of it in the rain. He wants to be unconscious, or dead. 

“Izaya.”

He keeps his eyes clenched. When nothing happens, he cracks them open and looks up.

Shizuo is holding out his hand, looking annoyed. “Get up.”

Izaya lifts his own hesitant hand, and it is wrapped in Shizuo’s and hauls him to his feet.

Izaya holds on as he gets his balance, feeling the strength in that grip and what it could do to him. Their eyes meet. Then the moment passes and Shizuo lets go.

“Shinra on the way?”

Izaya shakes his head.

“Shinra’s away.”

“Oh, yeah.”

Shizuo still looks annoyed, in a long suffering kind of way, like Izaya should find better things to do than collapse in the street.

“You better come over then.”

He says this grudgingly, barely audible over the rain. Izaya stares and wonders if he’s even heard him right, trying to make out his expression in the dark. Shizuo just gestures for him to hurry up. 

Izaya's heart’s getting up again. He’s shaking and wet and for a moment so wildly, desperately grateful for not being left that he can’t think straight. His hands reach out for Shizuo, numb and ice-like, and he is kissing him. He’s freezing, his hair is dripping into his eyes, and Shizuo is so warm and so solid, and he is letting him. He puts his hands under Izaya’s arms to steady him when his balance trembles, and doesn’t push him off.

He’s poker faced when he eventually eases Izaya back.

“You’re all wet.”

He steps away carefully, as if Izaya were grade that might go off.

“You better come over.”

* * *

 

The closer they get to Shizuo’s apartment, the more he realises how much shit he’s in. He’d been found, bleeding and helpless in the rain like an animal, to be found by none other than his enemy. And then he’d kissed him. And Shizuo was only taking him in the way he would a stray dog, even a really mangy, vicious one.

He gets hot behind the eyes until Shizuo shakes his arm. They’re at his apartment door.

“You can use the shower.”

Shizuo brings him a towel.

“I want a bath.”

“Then get a bath.”

He doesn’t like Shizuo’s shampoo, doesn’t like being out of his element, but the warmth makes all of that melt away. He soaks without thinking anything until the water cools, until his fingers and toes are no longer numb. He catches sight of himself in the mirror and looks away. It takes him a while to get the mud and the blood out of the tub.

When he’s out, he puts on the robe Shizuo had left him and joins the other man on the couch. He can hear his clothes clunking round in the machine.

“So,” Shizuo says, and Izaya closes his eyes, praying for anything but small talk. “You lose your mind or what?”

Izaya throws him a half-hearted glare.

“Did _you_? You invited me over.”

“I asked first.”

Izaya says nothing.

“You looked weird,” Shizuo offers. “Kind of spaced out.”

This does not explain much. Izaya would not help Shizuo if he found him looking ‘spaced out.’ He wonders dully how long his clothes will take.

* * *

When he next opens his eyes, the room is warmer, the TV on low, and his clothes appear to be done. Izaya sits up.

“I think I better go home now.”

“It’s still raining.”

He knows it is. He can hear it.

“Still,” he says.

Shizuo shrugs. He doesn’t seem to care either way. He turns off the TV and throws Izaya a blanket.

“Sofa’s good if you change your mind.”

* * *

Izaya doesn’t go home, but he doesn’t sleep either. He watches Shizuo’s bedroom door long after he’d closed it. He’s in Shizuo’s _home_. This is the kind of opportunity he’d been waiting for. He could finish Shizuo off in his sleep and no-one would even know he was here. Unless it is a trick, and Shizuo is waiting to strangle him in the dark. He wants to creep to the door and see if he can hear the protozoan breathing, but he doesn’t dare.

His clothes are folded next to him, but he doesn’t put them on. He doesn’t want to go outside. Even if he can’t sleep, he can just wait until morning.

Shizuo comes out again at some point in the night, making him jump, as if he’d read Izaya’s mind. He goes to the bathroom, then to the kitchen for a glass of water.

“I know you’re awake,” he calls. He sounds tired. “Move.”

He sits down in the space Izaya pulls his legs from.

“How come you’re up?” Izaya asks him.

“Dunno,” he says. “Because you’re here, probably. I keep thinking you’re about to knife me in my sleep.”

Izaya looks away guiltily.

“How come you’re awake?”

“I don’t know. Strange place.”

“You warm enough?”

“Yes. Thanks,” he adds, and wonders if he’s dreaming. This is too bizarre. He hears Shizuo drinking next to him. Being around the other man puts him on edge, and it is draining. He shifts around, trying to get his legs comfortable without touching Shizuo. Shizuo is saying something now.

“What?” he asks sleepily.

“When’s Shinra back again?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Oh yeah.”

Izaya rubs his eyes.

“What time is it?”

“About four."

Four. That is far too close to the day.

Shizuo is saying something else.

“What?” he says again. “I’m falling asleep.”

“OK. I’ll leave you alone.”

Izaya feels the couch shift as he starts to get up.

“Why’d you help me?” he blurts suddenly. He doesn’t know why he says it. It’s not like he wants Shizuo to start questioning the decision too closely. It must be because he's tired, his subconscious starting to take over.

But Shizuo just shrugs. Izaya feels it in the back of the couch.

“I have no fucking idea.” He places his glass on the coffee table. “I’d say you owe me one, but that’d probably mean nothing to you.”

Izaya absorbs this in silence.

“I won’t knife you in your sleep,” he offers meekly, half joking, half reassuring, and Shizuo laughs. He puts his hand on Izaya’s knee to push himself up from the couch.

“Night, flea.”

“…Shizuo?”

“What?”

Izaya lies there and says nothing. He waits for Shizuo to bring up the fact that Izaya had kissed him, to say or ask him anything about it, but he just waits Izaya out. Izaya stretches his legs out again in the space he'd left, accepting defeat.

“Nothing. Goodnight.”

Shizuo hesitates, long enough for Izaya’s heart to skip and his hopes to jump, but eventually pads back to his room.

Izaya tugs the blanket around himself more firmly.

As soon as it’s light, he gets dressed. He doesn’t know if Shizuo hears him or not, but he doesn’t stop him on his way out.


	2. Chapter 2

When he opens his eyes, by some freak turn of the universe, he is back in Shizuo’s house. He sits up slowly, waiting for his own room to materialise. When it doesn’t, he finally acknowledges Shizuo, who is watching him from the kitchen with his eyebrows raised.

“I thought I left,” he says.

“You did,” Shizuo answers. “You collapsed in the fucking hallway.”

“I did?”

This makes sense. After all, he doesn’t actually remember getting home.

“That or one of my neighbours decided to clobber you.”

Izaya stares at him.

Shizuo rolls his eyes.

“ _I_ didn’t follow you out and clobber you just to bring you back here, flea. Much as I enjoy your company.”

He smiles weakly. “It’s just – that's never happened to me before.”

He should have had some water on his way out.

“Yeah,” Shizuo says. “Want to eat something?”

“No, thanks.”

“Come on. It’ll make you stronger. Sooner you’re better, sooner you’re out.”

“Later,” he says, lying back down. He is far, far too tired. He feels like he really did walk home, not to the end of the hallway.

* * *

He wakes up with his feet in Shizuo’s lap. He gives a start when he realises and draws them back, feeling violated. He throws Shizuo an angry glare.

“You’re such a creep, Shizu-chan.”

Shizuo returns a scornful glance of his own.

“You kept stretching your feet out, flea. I got tired of moving them after the fourth fucking time.”

Izaya looks away. This is probably true. He is after all used to sleeping however he wants, alone in a huge bed.

“Shinra’s not back until tonight,” Shizuo says now. “Late.”

“How do you know?”

“I called him.”

Izaya doesn’t say anything, but deep down he feels he might actually owe Shizuo something after all.

It’s only when he gets home, when he’s catching up with his affairs, that he finds out they killed Kine.

* * *

He’s been home alone he doesn’t know how long, when someone knocks. By this time, he’s had the urn for about three weeks. Kine’s wife hadn’t wanted it. Izaya’s surprised she even bothered to show up to the funeral. He’d thought vaguely about what to do with it, but quite honestly he can’t bring himself to part with it. He talks to it in his head. Kine had been the only person tostill talk to him, the only one to see something worth guiding when he was young.

He answers the door out of curiosity, because he’s been turning down work and sent Namie on a vacation and never sees his sisters, so he can’t think who it might be.

It's Shizuo. Izaya stares at him. He had completely forgotten about him.

“You left this.” He holds out one of Izaya's rings. He vaguely remembers losing it, but then his world had fallen apart and he’d forgotten about it. "It fell down the couch," Shizuo explains.

He lets Shizuo in.

Shizuo's eyes immediately fall to the urn on the coffee table, which he keeps there because it’s too fucking big to really fit anywhere else, because he’s scared of it breaking if he puts it somewhere high up and because it’s too creepy for his room.

“That an urn?”

Izaya turns his eyes to him slowly.

“No, it’s a really ugly fucking jar.”

Shizuo looks uncomfortable.

“Right.  Sorry.”

Something in Izaya deflates then, something that knows he’s fucked up before he’s even started. He's not surprised Shizuo doesn’t stay long.

* * *

The next time Shizuo comes, he has his act together somewhat. He’s taking calls again and taking on work, and slowly, slowly coming back to life. He still has the urn, but he’s beginning to just accept it as part of his life, like an unsightly plant that doesn’t need watering.

He’s back to life enough to give a start when he sees Shizuo again, partly because his sense of self-preservation is returning, and partly out of embarrassment. Shizuo still hadn’t confronted him over the kiss.

“I need your help with something,” Shizuo says. “You don’t have to, but I thought it was worth asking after, you know.”

Izaya lets him in.

Shizuo unhooks a bag from his shoulder and takes out a laptop, showing it to him. Izaya finds himself smiling.

“That’s it?”

A broken computer. Not even broken, but just in good need of updating and cleaning.

“Shinra said you’re good with computers,” he says now. “I don’t really use it, but it’s good to have just in case.”

Izaya is already typing away.

“Give me a minute.”

He makes Shizuo some tea and puts the TV on for him.

When he looks up to tell him it’s done, he finds Shizuo looking at the urn again. Izaya himself is so used to it he barely even notices it.

“I’m getting rid of it this week,” he blurts.

He has no idea what compulsed him to say it, but as soon as he does he knows it’s true.

“That’s good,” Shizuo says.

Izaya gives him his laptop back.

He still doesn't mention the kiss.

* * *

Izaya takes the ashes to Ubara beach, thinking he can scatter them off the cliffs there. It’s not as simple as he thought. He has a limp still from his encounter with those bloodhounds, and by the time he finds the perfect spot – and he does want it to be perfect – it is getting dark and he doesn’t want to rush. He knows if he takes the urn home he’ll never take it out again, so he checks into a hotel near the station and decides to try again tomorrow.

* * *

The next day, he has a lie in, has enough to eat to last him a good while, and again lugs the urn up to the beach cliffs. It takes him a while to find the spot from yesterday, and he has to sit down to rest when he does make it. He puts the urn between his legs, securing it with his feet.

He finds himself thinking about Shizuo, wonders what Kine would tell him to do. Probably something so practical it would be impossible.

His phone goes, startling him. The signal tends to be shaky at best up here.

It’s Shizuo.

For some reason this alarms him. He has a sudden feeling that it's bad news, that Shizuo needs him for something more urgent than a defunct computer, although this made no sense: there was no reason for Shizuo to be in any trouble, and no reason for him to call Izaya if he were.

“Shizuo?” he says, shielding his other ear from the wind.

“Hi,” Shizuo answers. His voice sounds odd. “So this is none of my business, but Shinra said you were scattering the ashes yesterday and you didn’t come back, so I, I just…”

“Oh,” Izaya says, understanding. “No, I…I just got here really late, so I decided to stay in a hotel. I’m doing it today instead. I'm OK.”

“Oh. Right.” There’s a little pause. “Uh, are you out there now? Sounds windy.”

Izaya gulps, looking down. The rocks look vicious. Perhaps it not the best places to scatter ashes after all. Perhaps he should keep looking.

"Izaya?"

“Mm? Oh. Yup.”

“By yourself?”

“Well, it’s not really something you bring your kid sisters for.”

“Yeah, but…you were still limping pretty bad last time I saw you. And it looks a fucking heavy urn.”

“I’m all right.”

Shizuo doesn’t say anything.

“Really,” he insists, but he looks over the edge now, and wonders vaguely whether he would have thought of jumping himself if Shizuo hadn’t suggested it.

“So you’re coming back today?”

“Yes. Well. Probably. It depends what time I get back. I’ll stay another night if it’s late.”

“So you’re quite far from the hotel?”

“No, I’m…” he trails off, vaguely surprised that he’s even being asked. “Why are you asking me?”

“What? I can’t hear you.”

“I said, why are you asking?” he raises his voice, hearing the line fade in and out.

“I can’t hear you. Look, Izaya, do you want me to come? I’m not being pushy but – I don’t mind.” He says something else before the line cuts completely.

Izaya doesn’t bother calling back. He turns his attention back to the task at hand. Now he’s been distracted, some of his willpower’s been sapped. He blames Shizuo.

This time, he doesn’t even wait for it to get dark before trudging back to the hotel with the urn.

* * *

Shizuo calls around 9, when he’s lying on the bed staring at the ceiling, trying to think of a way to kill time before he has to sleep. He tries talking to Kine, but it doesn’t work as much any more. Not in a strange place, when he knows he’s just a strange, lonely man talking to an urn.

“Hi,” he says, pleased at the chance to hear Shizuo’s voice, whatever he it is he wants.

“Hi,” Shizuo says. “Don’t be mad, but, I’m downstairs. I think. In the hotel by the station. I was worried about you.”

Izaya is already bolt upright and stumbling towards the door, heart pumping with disbelief. “I’m coming.”

He finds Shizuo in the empty lobby, incongruous in his barman get-up and sunglasses, and is so pleased to see him that he gives him a hug. He can’t help himself.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” he says.

“You are?”

Shizuo hugs him back cautiously, and they go up to Izaya’s room.

He looks at the urn but doesn’t say anything.

“You distracted me,” Izaya complains, flopping back on the bed.

“Sorry.” He fidgets for a moment, looking uncomfortable. “Look, I’m not trying to – I don’t want to get in the way, OK? Shinra said not to come, but I don’t think you should go up there by yourself with something so heavy, and a bad leg. I’ll give you a minute if you need some privacy, but just let me take you up there, all right?”

Izaya just nods. He’s so childishly happy to see Shizuo, he’d let him scatter the ashes himself if he wanted.

Shizuo seems satisfied by this. They sleep side by side, keeping politely to their own pillows, but wake up wrapped around each other, and Izaya feels ten times better for it.

He stalls their day as much as he can, however. He sleeps in for as long as possible, has a long shower, then a bath, and then they have breakfast, and then he starts checking his neglected emails on his phone over a last cup of tea.

“Izaya,” Shizuo says, and he knows what he’s going to say even before he’s lifted his eyes. “Come on. Let’s get it over with.”

* * *

 

The climb that normally takes so long seems to take nothing now. Even the urn doesn’t feel as heavy. Shizuo had offered to carry it, didn’t press him when he said no. They make it to the point and sit on the same spot on the grass. It is windier than it had been the other days, which he supposes is appropriate. It’s supposed to drift with the wind into the world, not into a piles of dirt halfway down the cliff.

“Do you want to be on your own?”

Izaya shakes his head. Now Shizuo has put the idea into his head, he’s suddenly paranoid about freak accidents, about losing his balance or falling with the urn, or something similarly stupid. He realises distantly that this means he doesn’t want to die, and this is a good thing.

He sits with the urn between his feet looking at it, his hands clinging to it. He sits like that for a long time. Shizuo had brought an extra coat for him, but the wind still chills and bites him. He barely notices.

“You know what,” he says, voice shaking, barely audible over the wind. “I think I might just keep it. I’ll just put it somewhere out of the way. I mean, he’s not going to care, is he? He’s dead.” His eyes fill.

Shizuo covers one of his hands with his own and strokes it with his thumb. “I think you should do it,” he says. “It won’t make things any harder.”

Izaya gulps back a sob.

“What do I do with the urn?” he says, stalling for time. “I didn’t even think of that. What do people do with empty urns? I’ll have to google it.”

“You could bury it,” Shizuo suggests. “Afterwards.  We can find somewhere.”

Another half hour with Shizuo at his side stroking his hand, he waits for a breeze to come and takes off the lid, tilting the urn and letting the breeze take lift it all away. He lets his arms fall when it's gone.

Shizuo puts his arm around him and gives him a little squeeze.

They start walking again without saying anything.

He very nearly forgets about the urn, despite it’s weight, until Shizuo points out a spot about halfway down were the soil looks loose enough. It gets to Izaya then for some reason, in their knees in the dirt with their sleeves rolled up, and his vision blurs as he ducks his head, trying not to let Shizuo see.

Shizuo puts a hand on his wrist to stop him.

“I think it’s deep enough now.”

He rolls the urn into the hole and starts covering it again without a pause.

Shizuo takes his hand on their way back down, both of them filthy, and he’s silently grateful for it.

* * *

 

Back in the comfort of the hotel, Izaya sees that the white of Shizuo’s sleeves  are ruined, his shoes and the bottom of his trousers filthy. He bites his lip guiltily, thinking of how much he loves anything gifted by his brother.

“Sorry about your clothes.”

Shizuo shrugs. “I've got plenty of these. Should have brought something else. It should wash out, anyway. You can shower first.”

“It’s OK, you go.”

He has a long bath after Shizuo. It feels wonderful to be clean, like he is starting the day over.

Shizuo is in his underwear on his back on the bed when he gets out. The TV is on, but it is turned so low dogs would struggle to hear it.

Izaya gets on the bed and lies on his chest, letting his own eyes slip closed when Shizuo puts his arm around him.

* * *

He wakes after what feels like a full night’s sleep, when it’s only been about three hours. Shizuo nuzzles him sleepily, clearly not long awake himself.

“You OK?”

He nods.

He feels an insistent new energy that takes him a moment to recognise. He moves up on his elbow, the last of his sleepiness leaving him, and kisses Shizuo. The energy spreads as Shizuo kisses him back, as he puts his arms around him and undresses him, and pulls him under the covers.

* * *

It’s a relief to not have the urn. Shizuo was right in that it did not make things harder. Not easier, but not harder. He still talks to Kine when he’s inclined, still remembers him every day, but it’s easier now he has another person with him.


End file.
